It’s three weeks before the millennial anniversary of the Antonii Ascension. Kaeso Aemelius, star freighter captain and a blacklisted spy from a Roman rival world, misses his lone-wolf espionage days. So when his former prefect asks him to help a Roman official defect, Kaeso sees it as a way back into his old agency. But can Kaeso protect his crew of outcasts from unseen forces who would lay waste to entire worlds to stop the defector from revealing a civilization-shattering truth?